To Keep the Jeep or Dump the Jeep?

June 4, 2009 10:35 AM

Moving to the UK. What to do with my car? Sell? Store? Roadtrip across the Atlantic?

I will be in London for at least a year. Maybe longer. If I decide to keep it, I'm not entirely sure about how to store it. Parents were and option at one point but not any longer. Paying a storage facility cant be cheap. 2006 Jeep Wrangler. Bought new for $22k. 40k miles. I love it. The Kelly Blue Book is $12,000 which I'm feeling would be hard to get. Buying a new car and selling it 3 years later is generally a bad idea financially, I know. But gas prices are on their way back up and a couple years from now it might be harder to sell than now. I dont want to come back in 12 months and have to hunt for another car. But there is a chance that I will be gone for several years. Leaving for UK in 3 months. Keep? Sell?

posted by ElmerFishpaw to work & money (12 comments total)

If you can't leave it somewhere where someone will start and run it every now and then, I'd sell it. Cars don't store well for periods of years.

Also, I bet you'll get close to KBB -- Jeep Wranglers are one of a few cars/trucks that hold their values quite well.
posted by M.C. Lo-Carb! at 11:00 AM on June 4

Sell it. Non-classic cars don't appreciate in value, whether you drive them or not. The $12k you might get now will be $7k when you come back in 2-3 years. You have three months, put it on the market now and you should sell it in that time without a problem.
posted by jedrek at 11:40 AM on June 4

Sell it.

Buying a new car and selling it 3 years later is generally a bad idea financially, I know.
Yes, it is.

a couple years from now it might be harder to sell than now.
More to the point, it will have depreciated just sitting there while you haven't used it at all, making you pay for something you're not getting use out of. Not to mention you have to find storage.

I dont want to come back in 12 months and have to hunt for another car.
Agreed, car buying is not fun. But paying for your current car's depreciation and storage, and dealing with logistics, etc. are worse. It's easier to sell now than later. When you come back it'll still likely be a buyer's market.

Less hassle, more money--sell it.
posted by RikiTikiTavi at 11:54 AM on June 4

I vote - pay whatever taxes/duties/shipping costs you have to and bring it over there. You will absolutely RULE the M25.
posted by downing street memo at 11:58 AM on June 4

I stored my cars for a year while in the UK but I had a place to keep them. The ideal is a garage. If you can solve the storage location problem I say keep it.

Pressure up the tires, connect a trickle charger to the battery, add fuel stabilizer, use fogging oil, put a few mothballs inside, cover it and you should be good to go.

More than a year, sell it.
posted by cosmac at 12:07 PM on June 4

You will absolutely RULE the M25.

Um: the UK has SUVs, including the Wrangler. And the British models are left-hand drive while your US model is right-hand drive, so if you do ship it you end up with an white elephant that's inconvenient to drive and hard to sell.

(I feel your pain, I had to sell my beloved little Ka when I moved UK to US. I still miss him.)
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 12:59 PM on June 4

Have you not got a car-less friend over there who would be happy to rent it off you whilst you're away? I've done that a couple of times for friends over here in the UK when they've moved away for a while. It subsidises the depreciation, and also means their car's waiting for them when they get back.

Bringing it over shouldn't be an option, partly because it's LHD (a nightmare in london), but mainly because gas is around $6 a gallon, and the wrangler is not the most efficient car on the planet... (that's why wranglers are so cheap over here, even though they're relatively rare!)

I'd suggest renting it to a friend in the US, and using the money to buy a nice old second hand car over here, which are plentiful... the most environmentally friendly cars are old second hand ones!
posted by derbs at 1:32 PM on June 4

I shipped my nearly new Honda CRV to the UK when I moved over from the US and never regretted it. The same car would have cost me a lot more here and the shipping was only about a grand. The left hand drive thing is no big deal. There are plenty of people driving left hand drive cars here.
posted by gfrobe at 2:07 PM on June 4

I drove a left-hand drive in the UK. It is, as gfrobe says, no big deal. If you want to take it, ask gfrobe about the shipping so you can at least know the costs before you throw the idea out the window.
posted by DarlingBri at 5:28 PM on June 4

There are plenty of people driving left hand drive cars here.
This isn't true. There are a very few, and the majority are tourists who don't mind the inconveniences -- which are many: drive-throughs, parking garages, ticket machines of all kinds, overtaking, etc.

OP: Your car is depreciating every day. It's not going to appreciate in value. It's going to be unpleasant in the UK, especially with the gas costs. You're not going to love it any more, you're going to think of it as a millstone around your neck. So sell it, and go the UK unencumbered.

If you return in 12 months, it's not going to be especially hard to find a used 2006 Jeep Wrangler in the US, and as a bonus, you'll pay much less for it than you'll make selling yours now. If you stay in the UK, you'll be glad you're not trying to sell an LHD import. It's a no-lose no-brainer.
posted by fightorflight at 5:35 PM on June 4

You said you like your car? Then don't bring it. There's free-floating hostility to 4x4s in the UK; combine that with it being an American car (yeah, prejudice there too) and you might as well stick a neon sign above the car saying "Smash me! Key me! Deface me!".

There is no way in hell I'd want to drive in London anyway. Consider whether you need a car at all.
posted by Coobeastie at 3:05 AM on June 5

Bringing it to England is not an option I would ever consider. Thanks for the fresh perspective about keeping it here or selling it. Its looking more like its time to let my baby go.
posted by ElmerFishpaw at 9:59 AM on June 5